The holy books say "in the beginning the world was
without form and void".

No one knows how old the earth is, or where
it came from. The best method to
estimate age is by isochron age dating,
used since 1979.

By combining several test methods, scientists
set earth age 4.54 billion years +/- 1%.

The most significant event of 251 mya was
the great extinction in which over 70% of all life on earth
disappeared. Theories about how and why they died is
still heavily debated.

25 million years later, accept Africa as point of
origin, techtonic plate movements are splitting one land
mass into seven future continents.

At that broad point in time, land animals could roam
wherever they wanted to go.

The Triassic was a time of transition,
as global climate and ocean circulation changed. It was a
time for the survivors of the extinction to move and
recolonized the earth.

During the Jurassic Period was when dinosaurs and
other animals of their period rode on the continents toward their
final location, evolving and growing and developing new speacies as
they came.

It was also a period when techtonics moved the
continents apart, changing landscapes and climate as they moved at a
rate of 5 inches per year.

Dynosaur remains have been found on every
continent, including Antartica. But over half of dynosaurs found in
the world were found here in North and South
America.

The Cretaceous period saw the end of the "Age
of Dinosaurs", remains of which are found today in the "K" layer of
earth.

The Cretaceous also ushered in new
dinosaurs like ceratopsian and pachycepalosaurid
lines.

Also during this layer of earth we find the
first fossils of many insect groups, modern mammal and bird groups,
and the first flowering plants.

Pangea during the Jurassic continued to break up,
and as time passed, and the continents moved, increased regional differences in floras and faunas between
the northern and southern continents had affect.

The end of the Cretaceous brought the end of many
previously successful and diverse groups of like non-avian
dinosaurs and ammonites.

This set the for groups formerly
in secondary roles began to devolop. The Cretaceous
was an when life, as we know it, started to evolve.

94 million years ago p

late
techtonics were at work moving continents, but still had a long way
to go, and today they are still moving.

From Africa the central point, South and North
America inched to the west.

India took a jog north-east then straight north to
the Asian Continent;

Australia split from Antartica and moved a
long distance north-east where it ran into the
Asian plate.

Such techtonic movements spawned many
volcanos ahead of
them.

65 million years ago continents moving
about 5 inches per year were joining together into a form
similar to what we have today.

Land between North and South America raised of
join the continents and form Central America.

Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado,
Kansas, and other states north to Canada, were under a shallow
sea.

The "ring
of fire" volcanos were spawned by the
overlapping edges of techtonic plates.

As techtonic movement spawned volcanos, it also
thrust the land up a mile and drained the shallow sea into the Gulf of
Mexico, and the dry land became heavily
forested.

Dinosaurs between 130 and 65 million years
ago, ruled the earth. All of the dinosaurs in the table above lived in
north and south America. They lived on every continent including Antartica,
but more than 50% of the dinosaur fossels are found here in north and south
America. They all died around 65 million years ago leaving birds, small
mammels and fish as survivers of whatever great catastrophy killed
them.

The most famous of them all was Tyrannasaurus Rex, the
great killing machene. Yet his nine cousins were almost as bad as he, just not
as famous. Any of them could ruin your day.